Teacher Cancellation Low Income (TCLI) Directory: How to Qualify

The Teacher Cancellation Low Income Directory, usually called the TCLI Directory, is a federal list of elementary schools, secondary schools, and educational service agencies where more than 30 percent of enrolled students come from low-income families. The U.S. Department of Education maintains it, and the reason to care is money: if you taught at a school on the list, you may qualify for up to $17,500 in Teacher Loan Forgiveness on your Direct or Stafford Loans, or up to 100 percent cancellation of your Perkins Loans.¹

What Puts a School on the Directory

Two conditions have to be met. The school must sit in a district eligible for Title I funding under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and more than 30 percent of its enrollment must consist of children who meet the federal poverty measure under that law.²

State education agencies submit enrollment figures to the Department each year, and authorized state officials can update the directory electronically at any time.³ That means the list shifts from one academic year to the next. A school that drops below 30 percent can be removed for future terms, but a separate rule protects teachers already partway through their service.

Regional educational service agencies qualify under the same 30 percent threshold when applied to the children they teach.⁴ Schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Education, and schools on Indian reservations run by tribal groups under contract with BIE, automatically qualify regardless of reported percentages.⁵

The Two Programs the Directory Feeds

The directory serves two separate federal forgiveness programs, and mixing them up is the most common mistake teachers make. They cover different loan types and follow different rules.

Teacher Loan Forgiveness

This covers Direct Subsidized and Unsubsidized Loans and Subsidized and Unsubsidized Federal Stafford Loans. It does not cover Direct PLUS Loans, FFEL PLUS Loans, or Perkins Loans.⁶ After five consecutive complete academic years of full-time teaching at a TCLI-listed school, you can receive up to $5,000. Highly qualified secondary math or science teachers and special education teachers can receive up to $17,500.¹

Perkins Loan Cancellation

Perkins cancellation works year by year rather than as a single payout. It cancels 15 percent of the original principal for each of the first and second years of qualifying service, 20 percent for each of the third and fourth years, and 30 percent for the fifth year, along with the interest that accrued during each qualifying year.⁴ Five full years get you to 100 percent. The school must appear in the directory for the years you’re claiming.⁷

A teacher with both Stafford and Perkins loans can potentially benefit from both programs at once. But consolidating Perkins Loans into a Direct Consolidation Loan wipes out Perkins cancellation eligibility, so think hard before consolidating.

How to Search the Directory

The search tool sits on the Federal Student Aid website at studentaid.gov/tcli/directory-search. Before you start, pull together three pieces of information: the exact academic year you need to check, the official legal name of your school or educational service agency, and the state.

The tool matches at least the first three characters of the school name exactly.⁸ That precision matters. If your school is known informally as “MLK Elementary” but legally as “Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School,” use the legal name. When in doubt, search by state and year only, leave the name field blank, and scroll the results. A recent pay stub, W-2, or employment contract will show the official name.

Each result includes a school code and county, which helps distinguish between schools with similar names in different districts. Confirm the correct academic year is selected on each search. A school may appear one year and not another, and your application needs the listing to match each year of qualifying service.

If Your School Isn’t Listed

A missing listing doesn’t automatically mean your school doesn’t qualify. State reporting can lag, and data errors happen. Start by contacting your state’s designated TCLI contact; a list is linked from the top of the directory’s home page.⁹ Because authorized state officials can update the directory electronically at any time, a legitimate correction can be made relatively quickly.

If your school genuinely fell below 30 percent in a particular year, the grandfathering rule in the federal regulations can still save your service. As long as the school met the TCLI requirements for at least one year during your five consecutive years of qualifying service, the remaining years at that same school still count toward forgiveness.⁵ It’s an underused provision that rescues teachers whose schools shifted demographically mid-service.

Qualifying Teaching Service

Teacher Loan Forgiveness requires five complete and consecutive academic years of full-time teaching at an eligible school or educational service agency. At least one of those years must have come after the 1997–98 academic year. Service at an educational service agency counts only if it was performed after the 2007–08 academic year.⁵

You also must have been a “new borrower”: no outstanding balance on any Direct Loan or FFEL Program loan as of October 1, 1998, or no outstanding balance on the date you took out a loan after that date.⁵ In practice, that disqualifies people who have carried continuous federal student loan debt since before October 1998.

An academic year still counts if you completed at least half of it and your employer treats you as having fulfilled your contract for that period. Teaching service performed to earn AmeriCorps benefits does not count toward the five years.⁶

Who Qualifies for $17,500 Instead of $5,000

Five thousand dollars is the baseline for any teacher who completes five qualifying years. The $17,500 amount is reserved for two groups:

Full-time secondary math or science teachers.
Special education teachers whose primary responsibility was providing special education to children with disabilities at the elementary or secondary level, in a content area matching their training.

To count as “highly qualified” for either group, you must have held at least a bachelor’s degree and full state certification as a teacher for all five years. Certification obtained through an alternative route counts; emergency, temporary, or provisional certification does not.¹⁰ Teachers new to the profession must also demonstrate subject-matter competency, either by passing a rigorous state academic subject test or by completing a major, graduate degree, or equivalent coursework in each subject they taught.

Filing Your Application

Once you’ve confirmed the directory listing for every year of your qualifying service, you need two things: the Teacher Loan Forgiveness Application (available as a PDF on studentaid.gov) and certification from your school’s chief administrative officer, typically the principal or superintendent, verifying your full-time teaching.¹¹

Enter your school’s information exactly as it appears in the directory. Small mismatches between the listing and the application cause processing delays. Submit the completed form to your loan servicer through their online portal or by certified mail, and keep copies of everything, including screenshots of your TCLI search results showing the listing for each relevant year.

Your servicer may place your loans in administrative forbearance while reviewing the application. The process typically takes two to three months.¹ Perkins cancellation is separate: you apply through the school that made the Perkins Loan (or its servicer), not through your Direct Loan servicer.

Pitfalls That Can Disqualify You

Defaulted Loans

Federal loans in default are not eligible for Teacher Loan Forgiveness. You must first make satisfactory repayment arrangements to re-establish your Title IV eligibility.⁵ Rehabilitation or consolidation out of default can restore eligibility, but resolve the default before submitting.

Consolidating Perkins Loans

Rolling Perkins Loans into a Direct Consolidation Loan permanently eliminates Perkins cancellation eligibility. If you hold both Perkins and Direct Loans, leave the Perkins Loans unconsolidated so you can pursue Perkins cancellation and Teacher Loan Forgiveness at the same time on their respective loan types.⁶

Overlap With Public Service Loan Forgiveness

The same years of teaching service cannot count toward both Teacher Loan Forgiveness and Public Service Loan Forgiveness. If you take Teacher Loan Forgiveness, the five qualifying years used for it will not count toward the 120 qualifying payments PSLF requires; you would need 120 additional qualifying payments after those five years.¹⁰ For teachers with large balances planning a long public service career, run both numbers before applying. Once Teacher Loan Forgiveness is granted, the Department will not reverse it to let you redirect those years toward PSLF.

1
Edfinancial Services. Teacher Loan Forgiveness
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Regulations.gov. TCLI Directory Screenshots
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Federal Student Aid Knowledge Center. Information About Teacher Cancellation Low Income Directory Updates
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 20 USC 1087ee – Cancellation of Loans for Certain Public Service
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eCFR. 34 CFR 682.216 – Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program
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Federal Student Aid. 4 Loan Forgiveness Programs for Teachers
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Federal Student Aid. Perkins Cancellation
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Federal Student Aid. Teacher Cancellation Low Income Directory Search
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Federal Student Aid Knowledge Center. General Subject Information About Teacher Cancellation Low Income Directory Updates
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Federal Student Aid. Teacher Loan Forgiveness
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Federal Student Aid. Teacher Loan Forgiveness Application